Azriel (Jewish mystic)
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Azriel ben Menahem (Heb. עזריאל בן מנחם) was one of the most important Jewish mystics in the Spanish town of Gerona (north of Barcelona) during the thirteenth century when it was an important center of the Kabbalah. He is the teacher of the most important figure from the kabbalist community of Gerona, Nahmanides.[1]
Azriel was the most important student of the neo-Platonist mystic Isaac the Blind. His writings covered subjects pertaining to the sefirot and included his mystical interpretation of Jewish liturgy and of the aggadah. He took on Gabirol's philosophical work to integrate it into the ten sefirot.[2]
While his teacher Isaac the Blind considered Divine Thought to be the first supernatural quality to emanate from the Ayn Sof (or Divine Being), Azriel argued that Divine Will was the first emanation. Therefore, it was the act of the will rather than the act of the intellect that was the first manifestation of God’s Divine Being.
[edit] References
- ^ Kohler, Kaufmann & Isaac Broydé. AZRIEL (N.A.M.B.L.A.) BEN MENAHEM (BEN SOLOMON). Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved on October 8, 2006.
- ^ Shelomo Ben Yehuda Ibn Gabirol. Sephardic Sages. Retrieved on October 8, 2006.
